Methodology
How this data is collected, the framework behind the questions, and what it does and does not claim.
Framework
The survey instrument is structured around the four-quadrant system-stress framework set out in the April 2026 Potentia Public Policy Institute white paper, Strategic Responses to Idaho Medicaid Rate Reductions (Cook, Villegas-Grubbs, Deshaies). Recommendation nine of that paper calls for coordinated tracking of provider closures, service reductions, workforce stress, waitlist growth, denied referrals, and crisis-system utilization. This site implements that recommendation.
A fifth section captures financial position and direct attribution of changes to the July 2026 rate cuts. A sixth section captures narrative.
Relationship to H.B. 863 cost-survey audits
House Bill 863 directs the Department of Health and Welfare to cost-survey several HCBS service categories annually, with at least 15 percent of responses audited and used to develop future payment rates. The first publicly available audit report is due December 31, 2027.
- Residential habilitation
- Personal care services
- Developmental disability agency services
- Community-supported employment
- Targeted service coordination
This coalition tracks operational impact today; H.B. 863 audits will eventually drive payment rates. The two are complementary and independent.
Dual reporting cadence
The coalition operates two parallel reporting tracks.
The quarterly track applies to all HCBS provider types and continues indefinitely. It captures the full four-quadrant indicator set plus financial position, attribution, and narrative. This is the methodological backbone of the project.
The monthly pulse track applies only to residential habilitation providers and runs from June 2026 through June 2027. It captures a focused set of fast-moving indicators: home and bed status, vacancy rate, admissions status, service hour reductions, crisis spillover, and attribution of changes to the rate cuts. The shorter cadence exists because residential habilitation absorbs the largest share of the July 1, 2026 rate reduction and operates at the highest staffing intensity, where deterioration can compound quickly. Quarterly-only reporting would leave a four-month gap between cut implementation and first published findings; the monthly track closes that gap.
Backfilled monthly submissions are accepted for the current month and the two preceding months only. Submissions for older months are not accepted in order to prevent recall bias from contaminating the data. Backfilled submissions are flagged as retrospective in the database and are visible to coalition analysts during review.
Who reports
Idaho HCBS providers — residential habilitation, developmental disability agencies, targeted service coordination, certified family homes, behavioral-health and crisis providers, community-supported employment, day habilitation, personal care services, nursing support, and related categories. Participation is voluntary and unpaid. No login is required.
Aggregation and suppression
A reporting period publishes aggregate values only when at least five included submissions exist. Provider categories with fewer than three reporters are suppressed. Counties with fewer than five reporters roll up to their IDHW region. Individual provider responses are never displayed publicly.
A coalition analyst reviews each submission for duplicates and obvious data entry errors before marking it included. The threshold and suppression rules are not configurable through the public site.
What we don't claim
The reporting sample is self-selected, not random. Aggregate values describe what participating providers reported in a given quarter — not the total Idaho HCBS system. Trends across reporting periods are more meaningful than absolute values from any single period.